Coca-Cola extends loyalty rewards to social media actions

NEW YORK – A Coca-Cola marketing manager at the Mobile Marketing Association’s SM2 conference said the company is releasing a new beta site today that tests social media actions into the company's rewards program.

In the “Create Buzz: Find your Brand’s Voice in Mobile: Success Strategies to Stay Ahead of the Competition” session, the marketing manager went through Coca-Cola’s digital team's mobile strategy and the goals looking forward. In addition to mentioning the new social site, she also discussed the company's goals of consolidating all of its applications into one container app.

"A lot of the work I’ve been doing is through the My Coke Rewards loyalty program," said Zoe Glade, senior digital marketing strategist of digital platforms at Coca-Cola, Atlanta. "We’re launching a new site, a beta, Thursday."

"The beta rewards consumers for social actions," she said.

App centralIf consumers enter the App store, there are dozens of apps from Coca-Cola brands.

Yet, for My Coke Rewards specifically, the company noticed that first-time log-ins were 20 percent higher than multiple logins, showing that the team could do better at providing relevant and engaging material within the apps.

Additionally, the majority of downloads were not paid downloads.

Mrs. Glade also admitted that the reviews for the company’s apps are not stellar right now. She said that one of the key takeaways for her department is that they need to listen to consumers to create a better app experience.

The overriding issue that Coca-Cola faces is that it has so many different tactical apps that its brands were too spread out and not centralized. That is why the company is looking at all of the apps within North America that consumers are engaging with, taking the best parts of them and creating an all-encompassing container app that brands can tap into.

Looking forwardTwo of Coca-Cola’s other goals for the near future is to give consumers access, convenience and utility as well as help them shop and provide coupons.

Coca-Cola also wants to make sure that its apps and mobile products provide the company with statistics and data. The company wants control over its apps so that is has access to these numbers.

“The first thing is probably a road map of what you think your core capabilities are,” Ms. Levine said. “Let’s treat an app like a product. We want a product manager [and] tech all to make this app come to life. Not just a silo-ed app, so you can capture data.”

Final TakeRebecca Borison is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York

Rebecca Borison is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer. Reach her at rebecca@mobilemarketer.com.